Looking forward to further adventures of JJ Abrams' rebooted Enterprise crew on their ongoing Star Trek? Keep looking - Pocket Books has indefinitely postponed the spin-off titles scheduled to be released this summer. But why?

TrekMovie had the news that the four planned novels following on from last summer's Star Trek movie (Star Trek: Refugees, Star Trek: Seek A Newer World, Star Trek: More Beautiful Than Death and Star Trek: The Hazard of Concealing) were being removed from the publisher's release schedule. Asked for a reason why, Pocket Books released the following statement:

With last summer's blockbuster STAR TREK movie, JJ Abrams created a new vibrant, layered version of the Star Trek universe. After careful consideration, we decided to hold off on telling new stories while JJ and his team continue to develop his vision.

According to TrekMovie, the books "have mostly been written" already, and the decision has less to do with deadlines or quality than the desire on behalf of Paramount to let the movie braintrust of Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman lay out the status quo post-origin story - which makes sense, but is nonetheless surprising considering the potential spin-off dollars being left on the table while we wait for the second movie, due in the summer of 2012. Is this a new age of actually taking care of a franchise?